Social/Political Context
For much of Artur Barrio's career, Brazil was in the hand of a military dictatorship after the coup d'état in 1964.
In 1970 he created Situação…DEFL…+s+…ruas…Abril…(Unleashing confusion on the streets…Situation) consising of “the placement of five hundred plastic bags containing blood, nails, dung, waste, and other debris in downtown Rio during the peak of the dictatorship’s repression”
At the time of his (Situation T/T1) it was not uncommon for people to disappear. “Autonomous para-police forces (Death Squads) took on the work of “social cleansing”, eliminating delinquents, the marginalized and street children.” His bloody packages question the status of those that have disappeared and bring into focus the “socially apprehensible possibilities of” governments and other institutions.
Portugal was also under an authoritarian dictatorship between 1926 and 1974, during which Barrio returned to Portugal. This nearly bloodless coup led to the creation of a liberal democracy.
Read more about this topic: Artur Barrio
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